It's sad, yes, but I suspect that even your fuel is worse than that in Europe I'm afraid.

This really wasn't an issue in the past, but with the trend for smaller, forced induction engines, it's really becoming a big problem. Apparently there is a balance between cost, smog prevention and octane. E85 is probably a good solution, and may be why a lot of US cars are flex-fuel from the factory. It's those of us with European cars that are suffering the most currently.